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| Corbis |
| African nations compromised to allow a limited ivory sale. |
By Rebecca Regnery
As always, the 171 nations that are Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora struggled to come to agreements on trade in jeopardized species of plants and animals at the 14th Meeting of the Conference of Parties in The Hague, Netherlands, June 3-15, 2007. It was a dramatic meeting: Parties wrangled over whether and how best to protect such animals as elephants, tigers, sharks, whales, bobcats, eels, sawfish, leopards, and rhinos, and debated matters such as the proper scope of CITES, the effect of species protection on those who earn their living from species trade, and the growing of the species Internet trade. Battles that seemed to be won during the first series of votes were suddenly lost in the final stage of the meeting—the plenary—where delegates had a chance to revisit all decisions. The following is a breakdown of some of the major results of the meeting.
Elephants
Elephants—and the ivory trade in particular—are always a lightning rod for controversy at CITES meetings. This time most of the negotiating was behind-the-scenes, in the meetings of African nations that have elephant populations. Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe clamored for permission to sell their ivory, while Kenya and Mali asked for a 20-year ban on the ivory trade. After two weeks of negotiating, the African nations emerged with a compromise: Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe agreed not to propose additional ivory trade from their countries for at least nine years—2016—at the earliest. In return, those nations would be permitted a one-time sale of all government stockpiled ivory registered before January 31, 2007. The actual amount of ivory that has been stockpiled isn't known, but it's estimated to add up to 100-200 tons.
Any trade in ivory is cause for serious concern, but the director of HSUS/HSI's wildlife trade program, Teresa M. Telecky, Ph.D., expressed the hope that the compromise would "give African countries time to improve law enforcement efforts to stem poaching and illegal trade before any further ivory trade from these countries is considered."
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| USFWS |
| Conservation trumped the tiger trade. |
Tigers
There was no actual proposal to increase or decrease protections for tigers, but they still caused a stir. During a discussion of a report on the tiger trade, China, under pressure from its captive breeding "farms," said that it wanted to open its domestic trade in tiger parts (popular in some forms of Asian medicine), which it closed in 1993. When many of the other delegations condemned this plan as too risky for already severely depleted wild tiger populations, China argued that the industry was well managed and that captive breeding would actually relieve the pressure on wild tigers.
The traditional Chinese medicine community, India, and conservationists from several countries disagreed. India told the delegates that "the chances of tigers surviving in the wild are bleak unless and until the demand for its body parts is curbed." After the meeting, the disgruntled Chinese government threatened that its domestic ban "won't be there forever."
Whales
It's been a frustrating time for pro-whaling nations. Less than a week after the International Whaling Commission voted to uphold its moratorium on commercial whaling, CITES Parties rejected a proposal by Japan and other whaling nations to undermine that moratorium.
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| iStockphoto |
| CITES Parties upheld the commercial whaling ban. |
The Parties then rallied behind Australia's bid to preempt all future proposals at CITES to undermine the authority of the IWC. By a strong majority, they agreed that CITES would defer to the IWC on all scientific matters as long as the IWC whaling moratorium remained in place.
Sharks
Sharks came close to a victory this year. The 27 members of the European Union jointly asked that the porbeagle and spiny dogfish sharks—both frequently found on restaurant menus—be given CITES protection. Despite powerful opposition from the fishing industry and countries that habitually oppose international regulation of fisheries trade, attempts to protect both species each came within a few votes of the two-thirds majority needed to succeed.
The EU, not willing to give up on the spiny dogfish, called for a second vote on the last day of the meeting, but by then delegates had little interest in debate. When the proposal was rejected, The EU announced that it would continue to study the situation and try again at the next CITES meeting.
Delegates did agree to expand CITES' role in shark conservation and created a framework for considering the large-scale impact of international trade on shark species.
Sawfish
A close relative of the shark, the sawfish, was more fortunate: the trade in six of the seven sawfish species was banned. Australia, usually a leader in marine conservation, appalled other nations and conservationists when it successfully exempted the seventh species to allow trade from the Northern Australian population to certain aquariums for what it promised were primarily conservation purposes.
Eels
The vote to protect the European eel, which has suffered from its popularity as food, was the biggest landslide at the conference. The animal was the first marine fish species of high commercial value that has been awarded CITES protection.
Coral
Coral protection appeared to be a success story at the beginning of the meeting, when delegates agreed to protection Corallium, a group of 26 pink and red corals used to make jewelry. But economic interests thwarted environmental responsibility when a secret ballot vote during the plenary scuttled that plan.
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| Bobcats are still protected by CITES. |
The Good News
The bobcat, also known as the American lynx, weathered the U.S.'s attempt deprive the species of CITES protections. Southern Asia's slow loris monkey won complete protection from international commercial trade. And the Guatemalan beaded lizard was safeguarded from all commercial international trade.
While the Parties stopped short of forbidding trade in small goods (such as purses, belts and watchstraps) made of crocodile leather, the issue is not dead. A working group was created to review that trade.
Two gazelles received protections at this meeting—the slender-horned gazelle and, in a last-minute reversal, the Cuvier's gazelle. Following a contentious debate and a very close vote, Parties shot down a request by an endangered bird breeding facility in the Philippines to sell birds on the international market. And Cuba announced that as of 2008, it would place a moratorium on the hunting of sea turtles.
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| Corbis |
| There will be more rhino trophy exports. |
The Bad News
Two nations were given permission to establish or increase leopard trophy export quotas: Uganda may now export 28 leopard trophies annually, and Mozambique may increase its annual exports to 120.
Ignoring evidence of increased rhino poaching presented by Kenya, the Parties upheld a 2004 decision to allow Namibia and South Africa to each export five black rhinos a year.
The Parties allowed Bolivia to trade raw wool from all of its vicuna populations. Algeria couldn't drum up enough support for its requests to protect the Barbary red deer and Dorcas gazelle. And while Brazil did receive sufficient support to reduce protections for the black caiman, it couldn't convince the Parties to increase protection for the spiny lobster.
A Dangerous Vision?
A CITES working group spent some 20 hours fiercely arguing over the proposed CITES Strategic Vision Statement, a document designed to guide CITES—and especially its budget—over the next five years. The resulting compromise language was adopted by the Parties 13. Fortunately, the final vision statement was shorn of language that would have taken CITES down a different path, away from its core mission of protecting species from trade. The vision statement may well come up again at the next Conference of Parties.
The Effects of CITES on Incomes
The Parties reached a positive compromise on the livelihoods issue. A commonly accepted notion when implementing CITES is that Parties should consider the economic impact their actions might have on people who earn their living off of wildlife. This year the Parties rejected a broad-ranging directive that would have required an expensive and time-consuming search for information every time such an action was taken. The search could have provided supporters of wildlife trade with a shopping list of CITES actions that they could oppose on the grounds that poor people were being harmed. The Standing Committee will prepare guidelines for decision-making, but only if the funding can be obtained and only for voluntary use. Those guidelines will have no effect on decisions to protect species based purely on science.
Wildlife Trade on the Internet
Parties are to report to the Standing Committee on the impact of the Internet on their wildlife trade and what, if anything, they are doing about it. If funding can be found, a workshop will be convened on wildlife trade via the Internet involving CITES authorities, Interpol, the World Customs Organization, Internet service providers and other interested parties.
Beyond Winning and Losing
CITES meetings are never about winning or losing. They are about crafting the world's best wildlife protection treaty work, as the Convention has done for more than 30 years, to protect species from over-exploitation through international trade. While we are always disappointed when some of the species proposed for protection don't receive it, we are pleased about those that did. Three years from now another CITES meeting will see the same kind of battles over different species, or may even revisit species that didn't gain protection at this meeting. In the meantime, the vital work of CITES continues each and every day.
Rebecca Regnery is program manager for Humane Society International.
